Some Thoughts on the
Vivaldi Guitar Concerto in D
by George Warren

All right, let's have some plain talk about that "Vivaldi Guitar Concerto in D".

Of course, everybody knows how it goes. It's even turned up in the background music of a movie or two:

Is this Vivaldi? The hell it is. It's P.D.Q. Vivaldi, if anything. As played above, by something like 90% of the guitarists in the racket it's little more than a silly travesty of the original, and it's probably time we stopped inflicting this kind of fiddle-de-dee on a public which deserves better.

The rhythm is the main problem here. The way Just Everybody plays it, the first theme is two sixteenth notes followed by an eighth note. This allows us to get the tempo way, way up and show off our fast scales in measure 11and elsewhere.

I've heard, and even (God help me) read some of the dumbest justifications for this practice. None of them makes any sense at all. The reason most often given is that we are required to distort the written rhythm because "that's the way the composer wanted it played. "

Nonsense. Composers do, and particularly in Vivaldi's time did, use a kind of musical shorthand from time to time, but it's always the kind that costs them less, and not more, ink and writing time. Figure it out for yourself. The original says two thirty-second notes followed by a dotted eighth, and this takes appreciably longer to write out than the way Just Everybody plays it. Would Mr. Vivaldi -- above all a practical man -- write out the whole movement the hard way if there were an easier and quicker way to write it? For God's sake, let's use Occam's Razor on this stuff, and let's give the composer credit for a ducat's worth of brains and common sense.

So: we restore the rhythmic cell. We will have to slow the piece down considerably to do so; but we'll miraculously find that there'll be no loss of the proper feel for the movement. In fact, the sudden rush of those thirty-second notes, followed by the eighth note in the treble and -- make note of this, please -- then by the second eighth note in the bass, like this:

creates a kind of rhythmic excitement of its own.

Try it for yourself -- or, if you still doubt, take a listen to either of the Julian Bream recordings of the piece, played on lute with the written rhythm intact. All the hustle and hurly-burly are still there -- and at M.M.= 104, mind you.

Now, the score. What score are we playing from? The score is for guitar and full orchestra. If it's the Behrend edition from Sikorski, the Azpiazu from Symphonia, or the Visser edition from Broekmans & Van Poppel, all of these have a viola part. If it does, scratch this: it was made up out of whole cloth, most likely by Behrend -- a practical man who realizes that the orchestra doesn't pay the violas to sit around staring at the wall. Several other editions, including the still-available Visser one, have picked up the bogus part as if it were public domain. That's a no-no. (And note: when you drop the violas the guitar, which would otherwise be competing with them, suddenly becomes audible!)

Your score, minus violas, should have a realized basso continuo to help fill up the harmony. Visser correctly recognizes the fact but reaches for the wrong solution, simply picking up Malipiero's keyboard realization as if it, too, were public domain. It isn't; another no-no.

All right, what else do we notice? For one thing, in the original, Violin I operates a tenth above the lute part and Violin 11 operates at the octave. This is if we consider the lute part as having been written in the "guitar clef" -- the treble clef, sounding an octave lower. If the lute part is to be considered as sounding as written, the part is unplayable on an alto lute at the G pitch.

This question has been argued over at length, notably in The Lute and Its Music, where an international colloquium discussed the possibility that a soprano lute was intended. It still hasn't been resolved. Bream's recordings and others -- Joe ladone's, for instance, on the Odyssey label -- play at alto lute pitch, with satisfactory results. On the other hand Anton Stingl, on a old Turnabout recording, plays the piece on a "soprano lute" which sounds suspiciously like a steel-string mandolin, and I remain unconvinced.

There's a funny thing about it, however: the ear doesn't always perceive distinctions the eye is quick to catch. Emilio Pujol's edition of the piece for guitar and string trio lowers that Violin I part to viola pitch and puts it in the middle, not the top, of the harmony. And, wonder of wonders, the ear finds nothing wrong with this. (I've played this one myself, and it has its own satisfactions.)

So what version do we play the piece from? Frankly, I'd recommend the following procedure:

	(1)	Edit the "lute" part for guitar yourself, keeping the composer's visible intentions firmly in mind.
	(2)	Ornament the second movement, elaborately, on the repeats.
	(3)	Use the Behrend score and parts (they're clearly printed on durable paper these days, as they definitely were not when the edition first came out), but throw out the viola part.
	(4)	Do use a thoroughbass realization. They are part of the sound that Vivaldi had in his ear when he wrote the piece.

And, oh yes: remember that the guts of the piece -- the part the listeners will go home whistling -- is the slow movement: the fast movements are hardly more than an attractive frame for the lilting, almost vocal beauty of the piece. Keep everything in perspective, and keep the tempi chipper but relaxed. Bream, for instance, never exceeds M.M. = 120 in the final, almost tarantella-like movement. You shouldn't go a heck of a lot faster either.

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